Teh Official "Dude Where's My Forum?" Thread, Brought to you by the minds of Box, and her fiancée, Lorelei Options

[Box]

I hear the CRC GDI cleaner works really well for cleaning the top of the motor, whenever I felt like changing spark plugs on the Firebird I was considering doing that prior. I've never felt that Seafoam did much of anything but make a smokescreen.

[Bitter]

I used the GDI cleaner on the Mazda previous, it cleaned some carbon off the piston tops pretty good, but I'm looking to make sure the rings are free and clean the valves/ports. Been sitting an hour, not sure if I'm going to let it sit all night or if I'm going to get it out in a couple hours. I guess if I fall asleep I'll do it in the morning, I don't want to the stuff to all evaporate and re-solidify anything it's dissolved. This engine had a carbon problem previously which seafoam cleared, so this is just a preventative. It doesn't lose any oil between changes or hardly any, but the idle isn't as smooth as it used to be, that could be worn mounts but it feels like it's one cylinder not contributing as good at idle, I really should check compression...

[Box]

Had to look and see but ACDelco eh, even says piston soaking. It looks like a two part solution based on the bottle? The ultimate test would be finding a 7A-FE Celica that's burning oil and use it on that, I had decent luck using Marvel Mystery Oil so something more aggressive probably would've gotten the rest of the way. Will have to keep it in mind, "For professional use only-not for retail sale" you know it must be good.

[Bitter]

And yet it's sold on Amazon!

I'm going to call this one a success so far, I purged the fluid from the cylinders by cranking, then sucking, then cranking, then sucking, until I had only a small amount of liquid on the piston dishes. I ended up sucking a lot of fluid out even after cranking, I'm surprised. I run a bit of coat hanger inside a thin bit of tube so I could land it right on the center of the piston dishes, the fluid I pulled out was dark dark nasty dirty brown stuff, what went in was a nice Nyquil green. Because the piston dishes are so deep I probably should have used more fluid but I wanted to not use a bunch up on the first go round so I could do it a few more times if needed. After I dried the plugs with a little torch and put them in it started easily with only a little blast of smoke and ran no problem, I let it warm up a few minutes then took off. No smoke show, which matches what I saw when we used it at the shop on a GDI 3.6. There may have been some carbon blown out, but I couldn't see it.

It's much smoother at idle, the rhythmic shudder is gone in park and in gear. I'll have to see how it is once it's fully heat soaked but I drove it a good few miles, town and highway and it feels a lot better. I can't say if it's in my head, if it wasn't completely heat soaked yet, if it accelerated any better or not, but it just feeeeeeels better ya know? Next up I'm going to try the 1oz per 5 gallon TWC3 2 stroke oil that I've been reading about, supposed to make it smoother and run nicer too as well as clean injectors and cylinders and prevent carbon build up. It's ashless oil with a bunch of detergents and stuff for 2 strokes, we'll see. I might suck some X66 into the Celica tomorrow, but it's hard since I don't have someone to kill the engine and I don't want to kill the engine by drowning it!

[rentaspace]

Nice looking townhouse. As far as the allergic reaction goes he could have reacted to the detergent used to clean his clothes or a blanket etc..., may want to get hypoallergenic detergent to be safe.

We thought that too, but we are using the same box of laundry detergent and the same detergent in our dishwasher and has not reacted before (while in the hospital wearing our clothes) or since.

[Bitter]

Sometimes bodies do weird stuff, I've had some nasty allergic reactions a few times that were delayed by hours or days from the exposure and that I've never had to that extent ever again. I got an allergy panel done when I was a kid and nothing reacted in the office at all. 24 hours later I broke out in hives and started vomiting, I had a delayed reaction to one of the allergens, a severe one too! I completely outgrew the allergy though and haven't had issues since. Sometimes your body screws up and you suddenly gain or lose an allergy, sometimes apples make my throat raw due to a mild pollen allergy, but I'm not allergic to apples at all, my body mis-identifies something with the apple when my allergies are already acting up and suddenly apples are bad too. Or kiwi sometimes.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, you'll make yourself sick worrying, it may have just been a fluke and nothing to worry about. If it happens again, worry.

[Box]

I'll have to tell my brother about the X66P then since he was wanting to clean out the top of the Audi when he did the timing on it.

Also yeah sometimes you have delayed reactions, and your body constantly changes. I used to have seasonal allergies but I guess I kind of outgrew them over time since now the only time I get irritated is when I mow the lawn and then it's not every time and if it happens it's just that day. Still fairly allergic to bug bites and stings though. Also I haven't tested it to confirm if I still am, but I used to be allergic to whatever detergents clothes manufacturers used and always had to wash first before wearing.

[1994Celica]

Been driving my dads two door Tahoe the last couple days because my brothers girlfriend needed to borrow my car. It's different driving a bigger SUV that drives a bit like a boat but after getting a bit use to it I kind of like it. Made me reconsider my views on big suvs. Also helped my brother work on his Samurai.

[Bitter]

I'll have to tell my brother about the X66P then since he was wanting to clean out the top of the Audi when he did the timing on it.

Absolutely he should run it through there! $20 on Amazon, do it a couple times over a couple weeks and I know he'll notice a difference. I'm about to warm the Celica up a little and give it a suck through with some, I'll do a piston soak on it maybe tomorrow evening.

[Box]

Been driving my dads two door Tahoe the last couple days because my brothers girlfriend needed to borrow my car. It's different driving a bigger SUV that drives a bit like a boat but after getting a bit use to it I kind of like it. Made me reconsider my views on big suvs. Also helped my brother work on his Samurai.

I could never get used to the Durango at all. To be honest I'm not even 100% comfortable in the Firebird, it's a bit bigger than I'd like and the 5 feet of car in front of you that you can't see any of is slightly unnerving. On the flip side I wasn't ever 100% comfortable in the Miata either since it was just too small and being open top a truck or SUV being right behind me always was worrisome. Something around the Celica's size is perfect.

[Bitter]

Just need to get you back into a Celica.

[1994Celica]

Box just needs to become a billionaire and design a rwd v8 6gc

[Bitter]

Checked piston tops, still see some carbon chunks, sucked down 16 ounces of distilled water, will check piston tops once it cools off. Hoping that did something cause I didn't like how it was misfiring slightly, might have to slow the water suck even more and, if I could tap into the air after the MAF I could setup a bottle of water to suck from that isn't a vacuum leak. Would need two tubes, one for air in to the bottle post MAF, one for the water out mixed with air via a cut in the tube, then I could just drive around and steam clean while driving, except I guess idle would be a problem wouldn't it? High vacuum low rpm. Eh too much work. Some carbon is fine

[Box]

Or a Z car or Vette are around the Celica's size and already RWD. I could go for a Baltic Blue Metallic 6th gen though.

Maybe could run the X66P highly concentrated through the fuel system to get the rest?

[Box]

Confirmed my suspicions on the Z32 hardtop construction, turns out not much different than the 4th gen F-body hardtop construction. Just on the Z32 it's a piece of sheet metal over a cutout instead of composite:

Nice to know since "hardtops" are even more rare on the Z32, so like the 4th gen F-body no structural difference really just the weight difference. Like the F-body still rather have a hardtop, but knowing this could live with a T-top if condition and colour were right.

[Bitter]

X66 CAN NOT be put in the fuel system, it will damage the pump and sending unit.

[Box]

I guess you use it at the fuel rail then for cleaning injectors.

[Bitter]

Correct, 10% mixture is used in a fuel injection cleaning machine with it's own pump and tank of fuel.

Not sure the steam clean did anything, but I'll pull a plug and look some other time.

[Box]

Should add that to their marketing that's allegedly nonexistent since it's not for retail use, "CLEANS SO STRONG YOU CAN'T USE IN YOUR TANK!" With the Firebird anyway I always use Shell 93 so I don't put much thought into in tank cleaners since 93 is loaded with cleaners and detergents anyway.

I've always heard meh things on using water to steam clean the top end, I hear ATF works well on the other hand.

[Bitter]

ATF is good for lifters and seals and stuff but doesn't really do jack for cleaning like combustion chambers, if anything it'll ash them up more since it's not an ashless oil. TWC3 2 stroke oil mixed in a high ratio with gas in the tank will do more for lubing the pump and injectors and possibly cleaning the engine, I'm giving that a try in the Mazda right now to see if it does anything people claim it does. Steam cleaning DOES work but it takes a lot of water and a lot of time, most people don't do it for as long as is needed, I sucked only 16oz, for a dramatic effect you need to get nearer to gallons.


Weird thing happened today though, it was like my car forgot how to idle with the AC on, I turned it on idling in park and RPM's dropped way low and the compressor was shut back off by the PCM, then back on, drop low, off, on, low, off, etc. A few times this happened, tried holding a higher RPM myself and the compressor clunked on extra hard it felt like and really dropped RPM bad. When I went out to the car after shopping I turned the AC to on and started the car and then it was fine, drove fine several times with the AC on as well. Odd. Either the compressor was starting to lock up, the cleaning bonked up the fuel trims and idle controls, or my IAC is taking a **** and couldn't adjust for the AC correctly, or something else entirely. Another thing to keep an eye on! AC works great, took 90F air from outside and put it out the center vent at about 50-55F, on recirc it'll spit out 50F air all day long no matter ambient temps when I'm driving. Warms up a little bit when I'm stopped but that's normal for a fixed orifice system.